A little less than three years ago, I made an account on Steam right at the beginning of 2014's Winter Sale. During this sale, there was a certain interesting event called holiday auctions:
For those that don't know, a copy of a handful of games would be put up for auction by Steam, and users would bid Steam Gems in the hopes they would win the auction.
Being new to Steam, I had no idea what was going on, or how to acquire a 'steam gem', but this kind of community event was exiting to witness simply due to how unique it was, and really revved me up for winter auctions to come.
Summer Sale 2015 rolls around, and Steam begins the Monster Summer Sale", and throws in an uneventful, repetitive, and bug-ridden game, in which you'd have a better chance getting a support ticket answered by EA rather than successfully connect to the game's servers.
I still loved every moment of it.
These creative events have an ability to bring the community together through stimulating hype for the sale, as well as generating a more positive experience through being able to be a part of something so unique.
Then, Valve goes into hibernation.
Winter Sale 2015: N/A
Summer Sale 2016: N/A
Winter Sale 2016: N/A
Unless I've lost my memory, I don't recall anything even remotely eventful during those last three major sales, but it seems Valve's employees have finally risen just in time for 2017, and they're ready to roll out the hottest idea they've been cooking up at the round-table for the last two years.
Are you excited? Good.
Summer Sale 2017:
???
While it is still unclear why Valve executives and creative teams left this one up to the interns, it is clear that the wait for another decent event has fallen victim to a bit of an extension.
Then again, I wonder if the reason I found Winter Sale 2014 and Summer Sale 2015 so interesting was because of how new I was to Steam, and the lackluster years that followed were just a reflection of the rest of the community's opinion. At the end of the day, although I still mainly just love to see the flurry of discount tags next to everything in the store, a bit more effort could be put into creating a catalyst for conversation and camaraderie in the community.